Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
  • “…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
  • “…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
  • “A full-throated defense of economic dynamism.” - The Wall Street Journal
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

Macro Roundup


Thursday, February 12, 2026

AI Summary. Labor Department revisions lowered previously estimated job gains for the past two calendar years, cutting the combined net change in construction, manufacturing, and retail by 115,000 jobs. Healthcare added about 437,000 jobs and social assistance about 321,000 over 12 months, while all other private-sector jobs combined shrank.

Matt Grossman, Danny Dougherty, and Justin Lahart Wall Street Journal
Date Posted:

Large downward revisions in the latest jobs report imply that apart from healthcare and social assistance, there has been essentially no net job growth since January 2024. Previous tallies for construction, manufacturing, and retail in 2025 fell by 115,000.

Is healthcare hiring the only source of private-sector job growth?

Core argument: U.S. healthcare added about 437,000 jobs in January from a year earlier and the allied social-assistance sector, which includes home health aides, added about 321,000, while all other private-sector jobs combined shrank over the past 12 months.

The Labor Department’s broad revisions lowered previous estimates of how many jobs the economy added in the past two calendar years, spanning the end of Joe Biden’s term and President Trump’s first year back in office. The revisions took an especially big bite out of previous tallies for construction, manufacturing, and retail jobs in 2025. Compared with prior numbers, the net change in those sectors last year dropped by a combined 115,000 jobs. Hiring in the healthcare sector is the big story of the U.S. labor market. The industry added about 437,000 jobs in January from a year earlier, while the closely allied social-assistance sector—which includes jobs such as home health aides—added about 321,000. These roles buoyed the job market over the past 12 months on their own; all other private-sector jobs combined have shrunk. Beyond the private sector, there were big losses in government jobs following Trump’s federal-workforce cuts.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. U.S. healthcare added about 437,000 jobs in January from a year earlier and the allied social-assistance sector, which includes home health aides, added about 321,000, while all other private-sector jobs combined shrank over the past 12 months.
  2. The Labor Department's revisions lowered prior job-gain estimates for the past two calendar years, cutting the combined 2025 net change in construction, manufacturing, and retail by 115,000 jobs.
  3. Government employment posted large losses following President Trump's federal-workforce cuts.

Related Articles:

  • U.S. Wages Still Rising Briskly, Employment Holding Up, and Inflation Still Sticky (Probably) — The U.S. job market looks no less healthy than a few months earlier: the rise in unemployment to 4.56% has coincided with more people actively looking for work, while the share of Americans aged 25-54 with a job held near 80.6%. Wages rising about 4% a year can explain inflation running about 1 percentage point above pre-pandemic rates.
  • America is Losing Blue Collar Jobs — US industrial employment has fallen by 65,000 over the past year and is down 123,000 from its early-2025 peak, with manufacturing and transportation accounting for most losses and construction job gains slowing to 52,000 from 191,000 the prior year. The author attributes the decline to tariffs raising input costs, immigration enforcement hitting construction, and cuts to industrial policy subsidies.
  • Our Favorite Charts of 2025 — Wage growth is slowing more for lower-paid workers than for higher earners, limiting those households' ability to keep spending, while hiring is concentrated in select industries such as healthcare and among larger firms as small private firms shed workers. Layoffs remain low, but the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more has only rarely been higher.

AI Summary. Recent US job gains have been concentrated in healthcare and social assistance, and employment outside government, healthcare and social assistance has been mostly negative since mid-2024. Cyclical sectors have improved lately, with construction adding jobs in three of the past four months, temporary help rising for three straight months, and manufacturing turning positive.

Robert Armstrong Financial Times
Date Posted:

Of the 130,000 jobs created in January, 123,000 were in healthcare and social assistance. However, Robert Armstrong notes a slight uptick in manufacturing employment, which has been a drag since the start of 2024, as well as in construction and other cyclical sectors.

Are cyclical sectors improving as job gains concentrate in healthcare?

Core argument: Of the 130,000 jobs created in January, 123,000 were in healthcare and social assistance, and employment outside government, healthcare and social assistance has been mostly underwater since mid-2024.

In January: of the 130,000 jobs created, 123,000 were in healthcare and social assistance. But while the job market outside government, healthcare and social assistance has been mostly underwater since mid-2024, the trend since October has been encouraging. What is driving the improvement in cyclical-sector employment? Construction added 30,000 jobs in January and has been in positive territory in three of the past four months. Temporary help, which should be a good indicator of cyclical demand, has added jobs for three straight months, something it hasn’t done since 2022. And the manufacturing sector, which has been a significant drag on employment since the start of 2024, has broken into positive territory.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Of the 130,000 jobs created in January, 123,000 were in healthcare and social assistance, and employment outside government, healthcare and social assistance has been mostly underwater since mid-2024.
  2. Construction added 30,000 jobs in January and has been in positive territory in three of the past four months, while manufacturing, a drag on employment since the start of 2024, has turned positive.
  3. Temporary help employment, which should indicate cyclical demand, has added jobs for three straight months, a streak it had not achieved since 2022.

Related Articles:

  • Jobless Growth — Labor demand growth may be too weak to keep pace with even modest labor supply growth: the labor market is somewhat weaker than before the pandemic, job growth has turned negative outside healthcare, and firms are focused on using AI to cut labor costs. Economists estimate most employment losses in routine manual occupations since the 1970s occurred during recessions.
  • Looking for the Ladder — The article argues that the hiring downturn in occupations most exposed to generative AI reflects interest-rate sensitivity rather than AI itself, since roughly 38% of workers in the most AI-exposed quintile work in information, finance and insurance, and professional and technical services, versus under 2% in the least-exposed quintile.
  • The ‘No Hire’ Economy — US blue-collar employment shrank by more than 145k over the past year, with warehouse jobs down over 50k and construction job growth flat, while tech employment fell more than 19k. Unemployment rose 2.9 percentage points for teenagers and 1.6 points for young college graduates, versus 0.2 points for workers over 25.

AI Summary. Higher electricity demand from artificial intelligence is estimated to exert a 0.1 percentage point drag on GDP growth over two years, as weaker consumer spending is partly offset by higher utility capital spending. The present value of those GDP losses amounts to less than 3% of estimated AI-induced GDP growth.

Manuel Abecasis and Hongcen Wei Goldman Sachs
Date Posted:

Goldman forecasts that higher electricity demand and prices will exert a net .1pp drag on 2026–2027 GDP growth, as lower consumption is partly offset by higher utility capex.

How much does AI's electricity demand weigh on GDP growth?

Core argument: Higher electricity demand is estimated to exert a 0.1pp drag on GDP growth in 2026–2027, as lower consumer spending is partially offset by higher utility capital expenditure.

We aggregate our consumer spending and capex impulses to get an overall impact of higher electricity demand on growth. Our estimates suggest that higher electricity demand will exert a 0.1pp drag on GDP growth in 2026-2027, as lower consumption is partially offset by higher utility capex. The present value of the GDP losses from the AI boost to electricity prices in our forecast amounts to less than 3% of our baseline estimates of AI-induced GDP growth.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Higher electricity demand is estimated to exert a 0.1pp drag on GDP growth in 2026–2027, as lower consumer spending is partially offset by higher utility capital expenditure.
  2. The present value of GDP losses from the AI-driven boost to electricity prices amounts to less than 3% of baseline estimates of AI-induced GDP growth.

Related Articles:

  • Electricity 2026 — Global electricity demand is projected to grow faster than the world economy throughout the forecast period, driven by electricity-intensive industries, air conditioning, data centres and continued electrification. US electricity demand is forecast to rise about 2% a year over 2026-2030, more than twice the past decade's rate, with data centres accounting for almost half that growth.
  • Power Politics: Energy Self-Sufficiency in a Modern Mercantilist World — China leads in adding power to the grid, with more than 30,000 miles of ultra-high-voltage transmission lines versus zero in the US and lead times for large transformers of 48 weeks against a US average of 143 weeks. This positions China to accommodate new demand sources such as artificial intelligence.
  • The Real China Model — China generates more electricity annually than the United States and European Union combined, having added capacity equivalent to the United Kingdom's total supply each year. Electricity makes up nearly 30% of China's energy use, versus 22% in the US and 21% globally, and its share is growing about 6% a year.

AI Summary. Across countries, greater use of industrial policies is associated with larger increases (or smaller declines) in manufacturing employment shares (correlation 0.52) and faster total factor productivity growth (0.48), with East-Asian economies prominent in driving these relationships. The association with export growth is weaker (0.30), and no relationship appears with current account balances as a share of GDP.

Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, Andrea Ferrero, Luca Fornar, and Martin Wolf Bank of England
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

Cesa-Bianchi et al show that countries (primarily in East Asia) that make more intensive use of industrial policies have had more rapid growth in manufacturing employment, total factor productivity, and exports, but not larger trade surpluses.

Do industrial policies correlate with manufacturing employment and productivity growth?

Core argument: Greater use of industrial policies correlates 0.52 with rises (or smaller drops) in manufacturing employment shares across countries, and 0.48 with total factor productivity growth, both highly statistically significant.

Figure 5 [see image gallery] reports scatter plots together with correlation coefficients (ρ) and associated t-statistics. The data reveal strong and interesting correlations. The left panel shows that countries with higher use of industrial policies experienced larger rises (or smaller drops) in manufacturing employment shares. The correlation is 0.52 and highly statistically significant. The right panel shows that an analogous result applies to TFP growth, with a similar correlation (0.48) and high statistical significance. As one would expect, East-Asian countries play an important role in driving these correlations. This conforms with the popular view that East-Asian countries have adopted a strategy of outward-oriented growth, characterized by policies that promote tradable sectors. Figure 6 shows the relationship between industrial policies and export growth (left panel) and the current account to GDP ratio (right panel), both averaged over the 2002- 2019 period. The results show a positive relation between industrial policies and exports, though with a smaller coefficient (0.30) and lower statistical significance than for TFP or manufacturing employment shares. Industrial policy does not appear to be related to current account to GDP ratio in the raw cross-country data.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Greater use of industrial policies correlates 0.52 with rises (or smaller drops) in manufacturing employment shares across countries, and 0.48 with total factor productivity growth, both highly statistically significant.
  2. Industrial policy use is positively related to export growth averaged over 2002–2019, with a smaller correlation of 0.30 and lower statistical significance than for TFP growth or manufacturing employment shares.
  3. Industrial policy shows no relationship with the current account to GDP ratio in the raw cross-country data, while East-Asian countries play an important role in driving the manufacturing employment and TFP correlations.

Related Articles:

  • The Dangerous Triumph Of Neo-Mercantilism — Neo-mercantilism is thriving in both China, which pairs infant-industry promotion with large trade surpluses, and in a United States focused on external deficits and protecting domestic markets. The author argues this will likely fracture the world economy, and that a new multilateral treaty could include a mechanism to combat large structural trade surpluses.
  • Sticking with What Works: Raising GDP Forecast on China’s Manufacturing Push — Stronger Chinese growth driven by export-oriented manufacturing may not produce net positive spillovers: for every 1pp export-driven boost to China's GDP, other economies may see a 0.1–0.3pp drag, with high-tech producers such as Europe and Japan facing greater pressure. Cheaper Chinese goods continue to exert a disinflationary impulse.
  • Europe Has No Choice But To Intervene On Trade — Manufacturing competitiveness is argued to stem largely from lower labor costs relative to productivity, so policies that raise the household share of income weaken competitiveness while countries that suppress wages gain at trade partners' expense. The author argues Europe must therefore intervene in its external accounts to offset foreign trade intervention rather than cut wages and welfare.

Friday, February 13, 2026

AI Summary. A proprietary model estimates monthly artificial intelligence revenue grew roughly 18-fold in two years, from $772m to $13.8bn, with AI accounting for an estimated 23% of Google Cloud, 10% of Azure and 5% of Amazon Web Services. The model's ratio of investment to revenue fell from 6.1x to 4.7x, still historically high.

Azeem Azhar and Nathan Warren Exponential View
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

The ratio of AI capex to revenue has dropped to 4.7x and is poised to fall under 3, a level at which Azhar/Warren argue revenue would be sufficient to support the buildout: “balance sheets and external financing can stop doing the heavy lifting.”

How fast is AI revenue growing relative to investment?

Core argument: The authors' proprietary model estimates monthly AI revenue rose from $772 million in January 2024 to $13.8 billion in December 2025, roughly an eighteen-fold increase in two years, with hyperscalers as the main engine.

According to our proprietary model, monthly AI revenue grew from $772 million in January 2024 to $13.8 billion by December 2025, roughly an eighteen-fold increase in two years. The hyperscalers are the main engine. Our revenue model estimates that AI now accounts for 23% of Google Cloud’s business, 10% of Azure’s (the biggest of which is from OpenAI) and 5% for AWS’s as of the latest quarter. The ratio of investment to revenue – what we call Industry Strain – has dropped from 6.1x to 4.7x in five months. If Industry Strain remains high for sustained periods of time, it means that companies are not recouping their investments, and they are building speculatively. For context, the telecoms bubble peaked at an Industry Strain of just over 4x. In the case of generative AI, strain is still at historically high levels. On our dashboard, it sits in the amber zone. But the trajectory matters: if it holds, the ratio drops below our 3x threshold by Q2 this year. It would signal that revenues are beginning to “carry” the installed base and that the balance sheets and external financing can stop doing the heavy lifting. The question for us has moved from “Are we in a bubble?” to whether there is enough compute to withstand the agent stampede.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The authors' proprietary model estimates monthly AI revenue rose from $772 million in January 2024 to $13.8 billion in December 2025, roughly an eighteen-fold increase in two years, with hyperscalers as the main engine.
  2. The authors' revenue model estimates AI accounts for 23% of Google Cloud's business, 10% of Azure's — the largest share of which comes from OpenAI — and 5% of AWS's as of the latest quarter.
  3. The authors' "Industry Strain" ratio of investment to revenue has fallen from 6.1x to 4.7x in five months, remaining above the telecoms bubble peak of just over 4x, and would drop below their 3x threshold by Q2 if the trajectory holds.

Related Articles:

  • Is AI A Bubble? — Generative AI revenues are estimated to be doubling annually, compared with pre-crash revenue growth of 22% for railways before the 1873 bust and 16% for telecoms, which implied doubling times of three and four years. The authors project generative AI revenue could reach $100bn, covering about 25% of that year's capital spending.
  • Chart of the Day: AI Capex, From Bonanza to Burden — Stock price reactions to large artificial intelligence capital spending announcements have shifted from rewarding to penalizing companies, with the valuation multiple markets assign to such spending collapsing and likely turning negative. Technology companies once valued for low debt and low capital intensity are now among the leaders in both.
  • The Macro Implications of the AI Capex Boom — Artificial intelligence capital spending is estimated to add roughly 1.4 percentage points to US growth in one year and about 1.5 points the next, comparable to business investment's contribution during the tech bubble. A material part of that estimate reflects profits at Nvidia and a few other chipmakers that are unlikely to be recycled back into the economy.

AI Summary. The authors estimate that researcher efficiency, measured as the responsiveness of patenting to knowledge inputs, has been flat or rising over the last five decades. However, they find a negative time trend in firm growth conditional on patenting, indicating that growth, not ideas, is getting harder to find.

Teresa Fort, Nathan Goldschlag, Jack Liang, Peter Schott, et al. U.S. Census Bureau
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database
Is Important:
Important

Efficiency in the production of “ideas,” as indicated by the elasticities of patent grants, external citations, and breakthroughs with respect to 6 measures of R&D input, is generally rising, but “growth, conditional on ideas, is getting harder to find.”

Are ideas harder to find, or growth from ideas?

Core argument: The authors estimate that researcher efficiency, measured as the elasticity of patenting to knowledge-input stocks, has been flat or rising over the last five decades.

[Our production estimation] demonstrates that researcher efficiency in terms of the elasticity of patenting to knowledge input stocks is flat or rising over the last five decades. It also shows that average patenting by semi-decade across firms, after controlling for knowledge-input use and firm fixed effects, declines for some measures of patenting but is flat or rising for others. Given these results, why has aggregate growth not kept pace with rising researcher efforts? To address this question, we examine the link between ideas and growth. We examine the link between patenting and firm growth, allowing the relationship to vary over time. [Equation 7, referenced in Figure 12, in which the left hand side variable is firm growth]. Figure 12 reports the semi-decade fixed effects fixed for these measures of US patenting activity across five samples of firms and for the same six knowledge inputs. These fixed effects capture average patenting in a particular sample and time period, after controlling for those firms’ average patenting and changes in knowledge inputs. We generally find a negative trend in these fixed effects over time, indicating that growth, conditional on ideas, is getting harder to find. The secular decline in these time effects might reflect an aggregate ‘crowding out’ of ideas as the pool of total ideas grow.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The authors estimate that researcher efficiency, measured as the elasticity of patenting to knowledge-input stocks, has been flat or rising over the last five decades.
  2. Average patenting by semi-decade across firms, after controlling for knowledge-input use and firm fixed effects, declines for some patenting measures but is flat or rising for others.
  3. Semi-decade fixed effects linking patenting to firm growth generally trend negative across five firm samples and six knowledge inputs, indicating that growth conditional on ideas is getting harder to find, which the authors suggest might reflect an aggregate crowding out of ideas.

Related Articles:

  • Is It a Bubble — Transformational technologies have historically generated excessive enthusiasm and investment, producing more infrastructure than needed, asset prices that prove too high, and losses for those funding them, while also accelerating adoption. AI enthusiasm is argued to fit this pattern, with debt financing having the potential to magnify the effects.
  • Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? — The authors estimate U.S. research productivity has fallen by a factor of 41 since the 1930s, averaging declines above 5% per year across sectors. Sustaining constant growth in output per person requires doubling research effort every 13 years, challenging growth models that assume constant research productivity.
  • Is The Great Stagnation Actually Just a ‘So-So’ Stagnation? — Long-running U.S. tests show population average reading scores moved from 255 to 256 out of 500 and math from 266 to 271, despite educational attainment rising more than three years. The author argues that if added schooling has not raised productivity, measured total factor productivity growth has been understated, shrinking the apparent "Great Stagnation" by about a third.

AI Summary. The US administration is reviewing the list of steel and aluminium derivative products subject to tariffs of up to 50%, and plans to exempt some items, halt further expansion of the lists, and instead open more targeted national security investigations into specific goods. Officials viewed the tariff regime as too complicated to enforce.

Aime Williams and Andy Bounds Financial Times
Date Posted:

The administration has signaled that tariffs on steel and aluminium products will be scaled back in an effort to reduce consumer prices.

Are metals tariffs being rolled back over enforcement complexity?

Core argument: The Trump administration plans to exempt some products from tariffs of up to 50% on steel and aluminium imports, halt expansion of the affected product lists, and launch more targeted national security probes into specific goods, according to three people familiar with the matter.

[Trump] hit steel and aluminium imports with tariffs of up to 50% last summer, and has expanded the taxes to a range of goods made from those metals including washing machines and ovens. But his administration is now reviewing the list of products affected by the levies and plans to exempt some items, halt the expansion of the lists and instead launch more targeted national security probes into specific goods, according to three people familiar with the matter. Officials felt the tariff regime was “too complicated to enforce,” one person said, and needed to be simplified. One European business leader, who declined to be named, said they knew of a company that had sent four identical containers of machinery to the US and was charged different rates for each one.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The Trump administration plans to exempt some products from tariffs of up to 50% on steel and aluminium imports, halt expansion of the affected product lists, and launch more targeted national security probes into specific goods, according to three people familiar with the matter.
  2. Officials found the metals tariff regime, extended to derivative goods including washing machines and ovens, "too complicated to enforce" and in need of simplification, one person familiar with the matter said.
  3. A European business leader, who declined to be named, said a company sent four identical containers of machinery to the United States and was charged a different rate on each one.

Related Articles:

  • The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality — The authors estimate that tariff pass-through into US import prices was 80% in 2018–2019 and 94% more recently, while exchange-rate pass-through was low in both periods. Because imported inputs matter for US manufacturing, they argue much of the tariff burden falls on US producers, roughly a 1–2 percentage-point tax on manufacturing.
  • Are Businesses Absorbing the Tariffs or Passing Them on to Their Customers? — About three-quarters of manufacturing and service firms facing tariff-driven cost increases reported passing at least some of those costs to customers through higher prices, while roughly a quarter of each said they absorbed the full increase without raising prices. Nearly a third of manufacturers and about 45% of service firms reported full pass-through.
  • U.S. Manufacturing Is in Retreat and Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t Helping — U.S. manufacturing employment has declined for eight straight months following the announcement of sweeping new tariffs, leaving fewer Americans working in manufacturing than at any point since the end of the pandemic. Federal figures show more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2023.

AI Summary. The authors estimate that 94% of U.S. tariff costs were borne domestically over the first eight months of 2025, with a 10% tariff associated with only a 0.6 percentage point decline in foreign export prices. Pass-through into U.S. import prices later declined to 86%, shifting more of the burden to foreign exporters.

Mary Amiti, Chris Flanagan, Sebastian Heise, and David Weinstein Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database
Is Important:
Important

A FRBNY analysis finds that ~90% of tariffs’ economic burden was borne by American firms and consumers in the first 8 months of 2025. Between January and November, however, that incidence declined 8pp as firms reorganised supply chains.

Are U.S. buyers bearing most of the cost of tariffs?

Core argument: U.S. buyers bore 94% of the 2025 tariff incidence during the first eight months of the year, with a 10% tariff associated with only a 0.6 percentage point decline in foreign export prices.

94% of the tariff incidence was borne by the U.S. in the first eight months of 2025. This result means that a 10% tariff caused only a 0.6 percentage point decline in foreign export prices. The tariff pass-through into import prices has declined in the latter part of the year. That is, a larger share of the tariff incidence was borne by foreign exporters by the end of the year. In November, a 10% tariff was associated with a 1.4 percent decline in foreign export prices, suggesting an 86% pass-through to U.S. import prices. Given that the average tariff in December was 13% our results imply that U.S. import prices for goods subject to the average tariff increased by 11% (13 times 0.86) more than those for goods not subject to tariffs. These higher import prices caused firms to reorganize supply chains.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. U.S. buyers bore 94% of the 2025 tariff incidence during the first eight months of the year, with a 10% tariff associated with only a 0.6 percentage point decline in foreign export prices.
  2. Tariff pass-through into U.S. import prices declined later in 2025: in November a 10% tariff was associated with a 1.4% decline in foreign export prices, suggesting 86% pass-through.
  3. With the average tariff at 13% in December, the results imply U.S. import prices for tariffed goods rose 11% more than for untariffed goods, prices that led firms to reorganize supply chains.

Related Articles:

  • A Note On Tariffs From The Real World — A large retailer reports that pre-tariff inventory is still being sold, so tariff costs will show up as margin hits later, and that prices must eventually rise roughly 10–15% to cover them. The retailer says its sector's tariff rate went from about 12% to about 33%, and that retailers are holding prices through the holiday season before raising them.
  • U.S. to Cut Tariffs on Bananas, Coffee and Other Goods From Four Countries — The U.S. announced joint statements with four Latin American countries under which it would reduce tariffs on a range of goods not produced domestically, including bananas and coffee from Ecuador and beef from Argentina. Officials said no government-sponsored beef shipments are planned, but tariff cuts on beef are expected.
  • Tariffs Are Generating Meaningful New Revenue — New U.S. tariffs are estimated to generate $1.3tn in net new revenue through the end of the current presidential term and $2.8tn through 2034 before economic effects, about $600bn more than previously enacted tariffs. If a court ruling striking down some tariffs is upheld, the remainder could raise as little as $800bn through 2034.